Introduction to Drug Prevention and Community Engagement

Welcome back to another episode of the Drug Prevention Power Hour. I’m your host, Jake White with Vive 18, and today we have a special guest, Denise Mayer from Step Up Anderson Township, and she runs a coalition for safe, healthy communities in Cincinnati. So, Denise, welcome to the show.

Thank you, thanks for having me, Jake. I’m excited to talk to you again.

Yeah, so I was on, for everyone listening, was on Denise’s podcast. And Denise, will you tell us a little bit about that and then we’ll dive right into your coalition work.

Sure, so that is called Step Up to Save Our Children. It’s on YouTube, Spotify, that type of thing. And what we decided as a coalition, and I’ll talk more about this, is that it’s very difficult to reach the parents and caregivers that are our main focus. And so we’ve had many, many, many presentations over the years. I’ve been doing this for seven years. And you get just a handful of people that can make that work you know, in the evening when the parents are trying to do homework and, you know, feed their kids and all that, they’re not coming out to something. And they certainly aren’t coming out on Saturday or Sunday. So we just decided that that might be a better reach where they could stop it and start it and, you know, do it on demand. So that’s why we started in October.

Yeah, That’s awesome. That’s really cool. It was a blast to be with you on that show and get to talk a little bit more. I will see if I can put a link on this episode so people can hop over there. yeah. So Denise, tell us a little bit more about just yourself and then how you got into this type of work.

You’re so kind. Thank you. We love having you.

That would be great. Thank you.

Building a Coalition for Change

Sure, so I’m a grandma and I have six grandchildren and they range all the way from 23 to almost 24 down to eight. At the time I started that seven years ago, of course, do the math, I went to a presentation that I had no idea what it was really about on vaping. And I was so blown away by vaping in general. I had no idea that that existed.

And so I came home and I asked the grandkids, the ones particularly in high school, I when was the last time anybody talked to you about drugs or alcohol? Well, they had to really scratch their head. And the one that was a junior said, well, I think when I was a freshman in health class, we had a little bit about that. So that just ignited this huge fire in me to say, well, if not me, who? You know, let’s get some education to these parents because if they’re as naive as I am, they’ve never even heard of this or and certainly have no idea as to the detriment that it can cause, you know, not only physically, but also mentally. So I jumped in, I don’t want to say I was self-taught, that’s not true. I just jumped on every webinar, Operation Parent is one that I absolutely adore. And I jumped on webinars, I went to so many meetings and things like that, until I felt pretty confident with what I was saying. And so we started, you know, trying to educate, the community, which is not easy. So anybody out there that, know, but here’s what I’d like to say about that, because I was thinking about that. A coalition, a drug prevention coalition serves to bring together the community, the aspects of the community that are doing their own thing, but not necessarily coming together. So you have to get the players, the people that are the key people, you know, so like we have the fire chief and, know, you have some of the pastors and you have some school people and we have Girl Scouts. We have all kinds of different groups that have come together on this coalition to offer their experience, their ideas, all that type of thing. And then you can try to do community awareness. It’s not easy. I’m not gonna lie to you. It is not easy to get the parents to come. It is worth it. Right.

It’s not easy, but it’s worth it. Yeah. So when you started there, you went to a community presentation, but that was not from a coalition or. Okay. Wow.

No, it was a church. It was actually a church that put it on and there was a neighboring coalition that was the next thing over that was involved. And it was like kind of a right under your nose where they show you, not only talk about baby, but show you where the kids hide it and all that kind of thing. And I don’t even know that it’s still in business, but that’s what really got me going. And it was a cold February night.

Yeah. So I kind of think the Lord was pushing me and that we got out and went and it was freezing. And I just said to my husband, this is nuts. I can’t believe this is existing. Well, of course, more that you start, you know, clawing in, the more you know, there’s so much more out there even than the vaping. So yeah, so that’s how we got started.

That’s cool. And what I love a couple of things that you said that I just loved and I want to point out is when you talked about seeing the issue, the problem, and you were getting educated through this one event and you had this thought, if not me, then who? And I resonate with that so much with my movement, throwing those drug-free parties and events is like feeling desperate. There’s got to be something better. There’s got to be a way.

All right. Absolutely.

If I’m not willing to do it, how can I expect someone else to save the day for me? And so I just want to like say, Hey, step up. Anderson is lucky to have you Denise. Like that you had that. Yeah.

Right, Yeah you’re so kind. You’re so kind. Well, thank you. I feel like if we can save one child, and I’m certainly wanting to save my own grandchildren, but it’s worth it. I had an experience happen not too long ago where the president of the Chamber of Commerce out here, I had dropped off all kinds of information to him. This was quite a few years ago. And he came up to me probably two years ago now and he said, I just have to tell you.

I mean, I didn’t even know if he ever read it or did anything with it, but he was also a soccer coach. And he was able to turn a child around that was going in the wrong direction because he was educated about this and because he cared. And I think that, of course, that’s 90% of it, caring, you know, but that was like a big win for me. So I was excited. Yeah.

That’s great. Well, Denise, what do you think are the things that your coalition has done really well in the past seven years that maybe we could learn from? If you had a rap sheet to say, hey, we really succeeded in these areas, what would those be?

Yeah. Well, it is hard to say specifically, but I would have to say that the very first thing that I would tell a coalition to do, though, since we’re kind of doing that, is to get your 501C3. And everybody gets so freaked out about that, that that’s so difficult to do. It’s not. It really isn’t. And unless you’re planning on getting millions of dollars, which we operate on a very small budget, you don’t. It’s no big deal. But once you have that it gives you the credentials to be able to move and shake and do things that just an average person wouldn’t be able to do. So that’s my big advice for starting out. As far as what we’ve done, we’ve done so many things. But one of the things that I think was fun, because we do our focus as more parents and caregivers and trying to educate them to talk to their own children getting into the schools is pretty tough.

And, you know, so now you just have this wacko grandma wants to talk to your kid about drugs and alcohol. They don’t like that. you don’t want to do that. But the one thing we did, we did a youth summit and we invited a bunch of kids from different youth groups, church youth groups. And we had it on a Sunday afternoon and we had, we did it like a sort of, I don’t want say it was super religious, but you know, we did, we had some really great music and guys on guitar and all that kind of stuff. And they talked to the kids and did that kind of thing. And then we brought in, I don’t know if you’ve heard of sources of strength, but they are a mental health group that we had a wonderful girl come in. Her name is Erin Horn. And she came in and she worked with the kids on just building those strengths that support resiliency. And so we did that. And of course we had pizza and chicken and all that kind of stuff and prizes and all that. But the kids really liked it. And I really thought that was a good one. And it gets back to your drug-free activities where they can connect and do things like that. The other thing I would talk about is that we purchased a movie called Screenagers.

Screenagers have come out with maybe like four different movies now. And the first one was growing up in a digital age. And the second one was on mental health. The third one was under the influence. And the fourth one was really the same one only done for elementary growing up in the digital age. So we were, we purchased those. They’re not cheap, but we got them for the two high schools and the middle school and the toolkits that went with them. So they were able to access all of this good information and use it in their health classes and that type of thing. So that’s another big win and But then yeah, do you know if you’re comfortable sharing like a ballpark, what’s something like that? Cause you’re licensing the screen ages movie to share it with the schools and everything. What’s like a ballpark dollar range we’d have to save to do something like that?

Innovative Approaches to Education

Well, for a year, for 52 weeks, it’s $950. Now that could increase a little, but that’s what it was. And so, you know, we worked out some mini grants and things like that so that we could cover that. Some of the coalitions, big coalitions, get these big, big grants from, you know, like SAMHSA and all those kinds of things. And they are able to do a lot of things, but they still have to pay somebody to run the coalition. I don’t take any money. I’m a volunteer. I’ve been for seven years. So, you know, kind of have to think about that, like, okay, you want somebody to manage it, want manage this grant and then, you know, do whatever. one of our coalition people said to me, maybe we should get that Denise, that would be a good idea. And I went, well, then we would be paying somebody to do what I’m doing for free. So I don’t know. That’s a hard question. It works for some and then others, you know.

When the money’s gone, it’s over. So that doesn’t work.

Right. I feel like you have to really know what you’re going to do with it. Not just, it’d be nice to have extra budget because the budget gets filled up with your time pretty fast. So if you do have an idea, yeah, over the next five years or 10 years, we want to initiate this and this funding source is going to help. But there’s always a trade off, right? You’re saying yes to the extra funds, but you’re also saying yes to spending a lot of extra time and rules around how you can use that funding.

That’s the key, I think, because you had that on something you did recently that I listened to. But the rules grants are restrictive. So you have to know, you have to really fit your need to that grant. It has to be a really good fit, because if it’s not, then you’re working your campaigns to fit the grant. And that might not necessarily be what you want to do.

Right. I think we, anyone running an organization faces this outside pressure, I think, and maybe this is a generalization, but there’s people who think they know what you should do. right. And everyone has an opinion and they want to share it with you. And I have to fight this myself. I’m not grant funded. I think Vive 18 is very autonomous like yourself but we are bootstrapping it just like you, you know? And so it’s one of those things where you take one idea in, you see if it fits the mission and the vision and your community and who you’re serving. And you might take 5 % of that and say, that’s incredible. But you have to let the rest slide off you, because maybe it’s a good idea, but is it what you are equipped to do and the priority you should have right now. For, mean, just to echo that episode that went out recently talking about it, is that it’s just saying, is this a good fit? And is it a good fit right now for where we are?

Right? Yeah. And the other piece to that is that when you take on a grant like that, everybody has ideas. If you have coalition, have ideas. And some of them are a really good fit, and some of them are, you don’t think that’s a good fit at all, but you have to be polite and you have to kind of balance everybody’s ideas and things like that. But my husband once said to me, because I was, there’s a, I think it’s, I don’t know, it’s 83 % crossover. We talked about this between mental health and substance use. What came first, the chicken or the egg? And do you self-medicate because you’re mentally uncomfortable with depression, anxiety, or the other way around. So, you can kind of get into two lanes there. And my husband always says to me, stay in your lane. And I think that’s really good advice because if you don’t, you can just skyrocket everywhere. mean, you can’t, and then you’re not really giving the right message. So I think that’s good advice to stay in your lane. And it’s very hard with the mental health because, like I said, there’s an 83 % crossover. So I always worry that, you know, now I’m not addressing this or I am addressing that, but that advice has worked. Yeah.

Right. And I mean, that’s, that’s why we not only are considering our strengths and capacity, but also the needs of our immediate community that are going to tell you where that, that next intersection is. So when that idea comes, you’re like, yes, that’s the one that fits what the community is telling me and what we’re equipped to do. And it’s so good. And I wanted to ask you, Denise, when, when you started this whole thing and step up Anderson township, What? How did you get all of your 12 sectors together? like, are you, who’s on your board that you, how’d you get them to say yes to doing all this stuff?

The Importance of Community Involvement

Well, that’s the hard part. So when I first started, of course, I got my daughter because she had kids in high school and stuff. And she said, I’m going to help you with that, mom. So that started it. And then bit by bit, because of the connections you have in the community, you start talking about this. It’s not an easy thing. So I would meet with one of the trustees out here. And she’s a young mom.

And I worked on her campaign a little bit and then, you know, that connection. And she said, I really want to help you with step up. I think this is a good fit for me, you know, on this end of it. And so then you bring in, you know, then I had a pastor call me and say, you know, we are doing a lot of recovery work, meaning like for the 12 step programs. And she said, but we really don’t do anything on prevention. So I would really like to be on your coalition. I would want to be a part of that.

That’s not the norm. Normally you’re asking versus them calling you. bit by bit, I brought people on. a lot of my people, so there’s like this, let me back up. There’s a big prevention organization called Prevention First here in Cincinnati, in the greater Cincinnati area. And that was started by Mary Hague years ago. And she wanted to bring this kind of form a coalition and bring this information out here and it just kept going. Well, she ended up starting this and they helped coalitions in the greater Cincinnati area to get started and kind of whatever. So they were very helpful in doing this. as it turns out, and I’m not bragging, they just reached out to me last week and said that they wanted to tell me that Step Up Anderson Township is the Coalition of the Year for 2025 and we are going to receive the Mary Hague Award. So that’s for all of like greater Cincinnati. I am still flabbergasted telling you the truth. Thrilled and humbled, but so that’s kind of like, you know, one of those things that, like I said, they help so much with trying to, you know, and I’m sure that there’s probably similar things in other people’s area, but that’s one of the things that’s been most helpful to me they’ll help you to kind of find the grants sometimes or give you ideas and yeah and that’s what’s really important. Thank you. Thank you.

Yeah! Yeah. Oh, congratulations. That’s really cool.

There’s a group like that in Arizona, the Substance Abuse Coalition Leaders of Arizona. And they’re kind of that resource hub, right? Like, hey, we build community amongst coalitions if you need to know anything, encouragement, awards. So what do you think they saw that said, “Hey, Step Up Anderson, we’re gonna give you the coalition of the year award. What can we celebrate with you? What happened this past year?”

Well, I don’t know. It’d be really truthful. I think, well, we’ve been doing all kinds of stuff. We’ve been doing billboards. We’ve been doing all kinds of stuff. like I said, think one of the women on Prevention First, who’s a good friend now, Amanda Constarner, she said, Denise, I think you should do a podcast, which I got hysterical laughing at her. I’m like, really? No, I don’t think that’s going to happen.

But she said, no, I really think you could do this. So I took that and I ran with it and I found a producer and all that kind of stuff because, you know, and so we’ve been doing it since October and you were kind enough to be one of my guests. you know, I think, I don’t know, I guess that that’s one of them, but, you know, we’ve been around a while and it’s so validating though. It is so validating. Yeah. So anyway, there’ll be a luncheon and that kind of thing. And I’m excited about that.

That’s cool. Yeah, it’s nice to know that somebody sees your hard work and says, and gives you some encouragement. Keep it up. It’s going well. Yeah.

Absolutely. The validation, yes, so important. But one of the things that I was starting to talk about with Prevention First is that all coalitions are different. All coalitions do not exist the same way. So next door to us in Claremont County, they are agency-based. Now they do have somebody that runs the coalition. So when they have a coalition meeting,

What do you mean by that agency base? What is that?

They have agencies on the meeting. like they have maybe their recovery board from the Claremont County is on there, because they’re a county organization. And so it’s just really different than what we did. And what we were encouraged to do and what we did do is we’re a community group. And that’s different because most of my parents wear double hats, but they are parents.

And then they are on the coalition, they, like, you know, Dr. Ty Brombeck is an associate professor in addiction at Xavier University, but he’s also a parent. So he’s on the coalition. And then I have several women that are PhDs in the recovery field, and they are also parents. And so we are much more of a parent-driven coalition, except for the fact, of course, that, like I said, they wear double hats. And so they always have ideas and things. Some things work better than others. And I think my experience knows what’s going to be an uphill battle and what isn’t. And sometimes you can take that battle and sometimes it’s too much.

Cultural Insights of Anderson Township

Yeah. Denise, what is Anderson Township like? What are the people obsessed with there? What is the culture like? What do people get excited about?

Yeah, sports. lot of them are sports. They are very into their kids, but so much is on the sports scene. It really is. Anderson is, I would say, probably for the most part, you leveled it out, is probably in a middle class to upper middle class in some areas. About 44,000 people. It’s a really nice area for the most part, but that doesn’t mean we don’t have people that are struggling. We do. know, there are kids that are struggling. There are adults that are struggling. There are elderly that are struggling. And then there’s others that are not so much. And I think it’s fairly diverse. I mean, like not totally. I mean, we’re certainly more of a Caucasian group than others, but we have it’s diversified. There’s, you know, different kids and whatever. So I don’t know if that answers your question, but I don’t know what they’re the most concerned about except sports. I’m not kidding. When you, yeah.

Right. Well, I’m going to, you’ll love this, Denise. So I was just at the CADCA Forum Conference. And one of, yeah, one of the partners that we have in Oklahoma gave a presentation. So we worked with them, we helped her get her youth program started and they’re called CATS. So I think it’s Cougars Against Toxic Substances or something like that.

Yeah, and one of the things that they do because it was hard to get parents engaged and everyone’s obsessed with sports is they started basically sponsoring or paying for the, what would you call them? The program. like at a football or a basketball game and it has all the names of the athletes and maybe some info about the team. And then on the backside of that, they would print all their drug prevention information, their events.

And so was a win-win for the athletic department and say, you’re going to pay for our pamphlets and you’re going to get to, right? I was blown away at the, cause she would, her name’s Misty Russell. She was so clever on how she said, we’re going to integrate ourselves into the places where parents already go, kind of like your podcast. And we’re going to do it with athletics because people love it. And the other idea I want our listeners to take away too, because it was so good.

And I could relate to this. You know how at graduation, sometimes it’s like hundreds of people are in this gym or this theater and it’s sweaty and it’s hot and uncomfortable. And so she bought those fans and they’re just like, right, a popsicle stick and a piece of paper or whatever that she made or had printed with her information about maybe a local ordinance.

So theirs was the social hosting law that you shouldn’t host underage parties. And they put it on the fans so that, or yeah, so every person left with the message and they got to stay cool during the, yeah, it was so clever.

Mm-hmm. I love while they were in there, right? Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. Yeah, no, I like that idea a lot because we’re looking at spring break and then prom and then graduation. And then we have a big outdoor entertainment area here down by the river. And so that’s where big name musicians and singers and all that kind of come in.

And man, that’s another whole, wow. So yeah, any word that we can get out about the underage drinking and impaired driving is so important. I mean, it’s just so important because the kids can ruin their entire lives with this if they don’t, you know.

Addressing the Reality of Substance Use

One of the hard things though that I think is that I would just say is that parents, and they’re not wrong they’ll say, never my child, my child, this would never happen to my child, whatever. And they’re not totally wrong because the majority of kids, as you well know, Jake, will never do this stuff. The problem is we are edging closer to 25 % will do something. So, you know, when you take 20 to 25 % of the population of our young people, this is important stuff. So, you know,

Saying that your child is so busy with sports they would never have time for this is insane. It’s an insane statement.

Well, yeah. And I think we live in a different landscape today where that using a drug once could kill you because of fentanyl and things like that. I guess that’s right. used to be a scare tactic and now it’s kind of the truth. yeah, what I don’t love about that thought is there’s a difference between whether a youth kill you or a student has ever used and whether they’ve used in the last 30 days. And so the majority have not used in the last 30 days and the majority maybe haven’t used ever. But to say that you somehow like know everything about your kid and what goes on when they’re at school or what stress they’re under and that I don’t know a relationship like that where you literally know everything about your kid and yeah. Right. Sure. Sure.

No, I don’t either. Right. I don’t either. And as a mother of three daughters, and like I said, know, six grandkids, I am telling you, I will never say never about any of them because just what you said, you don’t know, and you don’t know the pressures that they’re under, particularly today with these phones and the screens, and you just really don’t know. And they want to fit in, they want to connect just like everybody else does. So you just don’t know. So talking to them often is so important and continuing that connection with them and letting them talk instead of you talk, know, ask them questions, you know, what do you think about this? You know, what are your thoughts at school and that type of thing is just so important. It really is.

Yeah, exactly. And that’s why if right now your focus this year is parent and parent education, and that’s the theme, if that’s their thought process now, we’re in the awareness and the education phase to help them understand, what is out there? Why are students using who are? And then why are students not using those who are not? So that we can keep doing those protective.

Absolutely, factors and we can mitigate the risk factors and yeah, keep our community safe and look out for each other because maybe it’s not, maybe it won’t be your kid. And that’s such a dangerous statement to say it’s not going to be my kid because you don’t know, but wouldn’t it matter if it was your kid’s friend or your neighbor?

Great for your niece or your nephew or your grandchild, whatever. And I think there’s so little information that actually gets to the parents like on the news. I mean, they get little snippets of something, but they don’t get the whole picture. if parents delve into the internet, well, maybe, but most of the time, they’re entertaining themselves a lot. I mean, that’s just the way life is right now between Netflix and all the things that they can entertain themselves with decompress from maybe a busy day, you know, there’s not a lot of time left over.

Yeah, and just like we have to meet students where they’re at, I think we have to meet parents where they’re at and find out ways to do that. So Denise, we’re getting close to end of our time. Let’s end with this. If you could give a piece of encouragement or advice, one last piece of encouragement or advice for people that are doing prevention in their communities and gathering maybe their coalition or something, what would you share with them?

Encouragement for Prevention Advocates

I think the first thing I’d say is don’t give up. It’s real easy to give up and you don’t want to do that because kids’ lives are in the balance. like you said with the fentanyl and stuff like that, we’ve had kids just try a pill, think it’s an Adderall and they’re dead. So that whole fentanyl thing, like you said, it’s all brought it up another whole notch. And in some ways that might be good because it does get their attention, but of course people are dying and that’s certainly not good. So I would say just don’t give up. Don’t get bogged down with like a school that says no or a community person that you asked to be on the coalition and they said, no, I’m not interested. It’s easy to do. So I’d say just keep going.

Yeah, we’re all learning alongside each other. Just keep going. We can do a lot, a lot with a decade of investing in our community. So we need everybody to stay in this field and to do what they can. Yeah, exactly. And then one last time, Denise, if people want to find out more about Step Up Anderson Township or your podcast, where can they go And then we’ll say goodbye.

Yep, Okay. Well, the easiest thing is to go to our website, which is www.stepupanderson.org. The podcasts are on there. Everything’s on there. If you are a YouTube fan and you’re going to be on YouTube, it’s Step Up to Save Our Children and the podcasts are all on there. So, and it’s on Spotify and you know, I put it on Facebook, LinkedIn, all that kind of stuff. So it’s pretty easy to find if you’re looking.

That’s wonderful. Well, thank you, Denise. And I appreciate that. And for everyone listening, this has been another episode of the Drug Prevention Power Hour, and we’ll see you next Monday for the next episode.